Bryan J. Smith wrote:
RHEL is about Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and 5+ year updates, and not about milking you dry. For a $300+ product, you get free support and the option to get guaranteed response times. Red Hat originally tried to sell a Red Hat Linux 6.2 E[nterprise] with SLAs. But SuSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 7 came out and showed that the industry wanted a "separate enterprise product" and Red Hat followed suit.
When I did try that support, it didn't give me a favourable impression. However, that's just my opinion. Others wil no doubt have really benefitted from it. What I really needed was the errata and updates rather than support, and an overall better overall lifecycle that RHEL promises and indeed, delivers. I could have gone down the Fedora route, but wasn't too thrilled with it's overall lifecycle.
I'm a non-commercial user (but neither a charity or educational establishment) and that $300 per year is a lot of money to pay for a stable and constantly updated OS. You could argue I could use Debian or some other free distribution, but having been a Red Hat Linux user for many years it's what I know best and feel the most comfortable around.
Now I didn't actually mind PAYING for RHEL, of course not, but I just find they need to find a sweet spot price for those that may not need the install/configuration support (like me), or the SLAs, but want the lifecycle the product delivers and the stability it offers. Is $340 per year worth it for that?
I was paying £65 a year for the RHN for the last available versions of the Red Hat Linux and that suited me just fine. That price is now £184, and includes features I don't actually need or want.
Of course CentOS has now came along, and that's meeting my needs just fine. Hence why I'm more than happy to make the odd donation when I can.
But by paying that money, you fund the largest commercial GPL company and collection of GPL projects. Don't bash Red Hat, they are a very, very good company -- 100% GPL-anal to the ultra-power. The only other company that comes close is now SuSE, thanx to Novell's purchase -- although Novell still a doesn't make their core goods GPL (whereas all of Red Hat's developments are always 100% GPL).
I'm not bashing Red Hat. Bashing Red Hat would be something along the lines of "Red Hat sucks; they've done nothing for the community; they're just another greedy organisation" which would be wrong on all accounts. Red Hat is also a business and needs to be profitable like any other business. I recognise that. I also recognise what they've done for the community as well. They are a good company.
And that's a good thing. But don't feel the need to bash Red Hat just because you appreciate the CentOS project.
I'm sorry to have come across 'bashing' Red Hat. Not my intention, most definately.
M.